I was wondering what you’re doing here.

Lightning speed post because I have zero time, go!

So last weekend . . . On Saturday I did a workout and probably took a nap . . . oh yeah that was the day I took a four hour nap. One of the many days I have taken a four hour nap. I probably did work and stuff that night. Nothing too exciting. Oh, right, there was a Ducks game that night. I watched that.

On Sunday I ran . . . oh there's a story to this. We were nine miles into the run and it was snowing and windy the whole time and it was just one of those runs where everybody is quoting LotR nonstop. Not just me, everybody. Recent favorites include "I'd say we were taking the long way around. Gandalf, we could pass through the Mines of Moria. My cousin Balin, he was a royal welcome"and "We now have but one choice. We must face the long dark of Moria. Be on your guard. There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world", which we of course amend to fit the situation, e.g. when we're about to head up Bittersweet Hill (a really long hill), "We must now face long dark of Bittersweet." So as I said we were nine miles into this run and getting close to home, and then Chuck says, "I think I'm gonna add on a little bit." Now I decide I can afford to add on a couple miles, so I turn with him onto the Wright Park trail (maybe the best trail around Middlebury (you guys would get the joke if you could get the joke but you can't, sorry)) and ask him how much he's gonna add on. Keep in mind that I'm about ready to finish up pretty soon here. Chuck says seven. He's adding on seven miles. So Sunday turned into a 16 mile run. "I'd say we were taking the long way."

Later on Sunday, Nicole showed up. Just teleported right onto campus. She's been here ever since, and she'll continue to be here until tomorrow.

On Monday I went to class and went to practice and watched the Ducks beat up on a pretty bad team and went to sleep way too late because watching a game that is happening in Anaheim while you're in Vermont is just not a good thing to do if you like sleep.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were more of the same, except without the Ducks games. On Wednesday night I had a map quiz for the Middle East. Hey Cole, do you know where Arbil and Dhahran and the Orontes River are? Well, you do now because you just looked them up. Maybe. I guess maybe not.

In History of the American West we've been reading some cool things about the Oregon/California trails, the Gold Rush, and being dicks to Indians. Cool as in interesting, not cool as in, "It's cool to be a dick to Indians." Just clarifying. We read a series of letters by Narcissa Whitman, who is the namesake of the school our friend Alanna goes to. She (Whitman, not Alanna) helped found a mission near Walla Walla and tried to convert all the natives to Christianity, but they ended up killing her and twelve other people.

Chaucer, Chaucer, Chaucer. We read the Knight's Tale and the Miller's Tale this past week. The first was long and epic and romantic and maybe even moving, but with an edge of something else because it's not just the Knight's Tale, it's Chaucer recounting the Knight's Tale. The second was short and crude and rude and clever.

Nicole's been getting to meet my friends. She thinks some of them are funny. So that's good.

Today I had class from 9:05 to 9:55 and then I was done with class hooray! So I went skiing with my friends, Chuck, Sebastian, and Greg. I tried to talk Nicole into skiing, but she didn't want to. That's okay, 'cause I still had fun, which is really the only thing that ever matters. One of the runs had a fence going down the side of it and the main part of the run was all tracked out, but the narrow and probably closed part on the other side of the fence was completely untouched, so we got some fresh tracks through some pretty deep pow-pow. And then the guy on the intercom who was calling out times for the racers told us that we weren't allowed to ski there. Worth it.

Nicole and I made two bets this week. The first one is that if I ever drink so much as a sip of coffe in my entire life, I have to buy her lunch. The second one is that if I do not read any part of my copy of The Silmarillion, and it has to be the copy that I own right now, while I am thirty years old, I must take her on a trip to Europe and pay for both of us. She doesn't see how I could possibly win in either of these bets. Naturally, I see differently.